MUMBAI: Indian IT employers are set to further slacken their hiring pace over the next two quarters, with more layoffs also looking imminent in the next 6-12 months, show the findings of a survey.

The Experis IT Employment Outlook Survey from Experis IT-ManpowerGroup India for October 2017-March 2018 has found that hiring intentions have dropped 8 percentage points from the last quarter and 23 percentage points from the first quarter of 2017, resulting in a net employment outlook of +50%. Net Employment Outlook is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase in the next quarter, and from this subtracting the percentage expecting to see a decrease in employment.

The IT industry is looking at adjusting its talent pool by considering significant hiring at the junior and mid levels, and layoffs in the senior slab, according to the survey. Results revealed that the collective number of layoffs that the IT giants are contemplating will reach a new high and this trend will continue for the next 6-12 months. Captive organisations intend to hire more compared with those in product or IT services, or the startups, the survey showed. Also, it will be mostly be on-demand hiring.

Hiring intentions of IT services companies, in fact, have plunged significantly, even as those of captive organisations went up. The strongest labour market is expected to be the southern region, with an employment outlook of 20%, followed by the West and North. The eastern region is at the bottom with the outlook at 2%. The highest demand was seen for candidates in the 0-5 experience slab, with nearly 56% of the 500 employers surveyed displaying an intention to hire people in this group. Another 41% wanted to hire those at the middle level (5-10 years).

Just 3% wanted to hire people in the senior level. Among practice areas and skills in demand, cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) lead the pack with a net employment outlook of 29%. Big Data and analytics come in next (22%), followed by machine learning (12%), mobility (12%) and global content solutions (10%). Technological disruption is real and ubiquitous, said Manmeet Singh, president, Experis. While innovations have unlocked tremendous growth opportunities, they also demand a lot of reskilling and upskilling on the part of employees and organisations, he added.

“Those with the right skills will increasingly call the shots, create opportunities and choose how, where and when they work. Organisations also need to invest in employees’ skills to increase the resilience of their people. Individuals and fresh graduates also need to nurture their learnability: their desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant and remain employable,” he said. A majority of the employers surveyed said they wanted trained freshers in the system. Companies are now looking for fresh talent in the market that is upskilled already with the latest technologies and ready to hit the ground running.

AG Rao, group managing director, ManpowerGroup India, stressed on the same. “Today, we stand at the brink of digital transformation and the current economic climate demands upskilling. Digital technologies increase the need to adapt even more quickly to disruptive new applications and services. Technology will continue its foray in mainstream business to drive and grow the business.

Technology continues to disrupt, creating new jobs and radically changing others. Employees need to take extra efforts towards skilling to be able to adapt to new technology,” said Rao.